HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL: Steinert, Nottingham back in action

What was supposed to be a Halloween weekend bye for the playoff-bound Steinert and Nottingham football teams instead turned out to be 21 days without a game for the Klockner Road rivals.

Dan Caruso’s Spartans and Jon Adams Northstars will play their first games since Oct. 20 when they return to the gridiron today for their final action before the NJSIAA Central Jersey playoffs kickoff next weekend.

Steinert (5-2) will host Rancocas Valley (3-4) in a 2 p.m. kickoff after Nottingham (6-1) travels to Pennington for a noon showdown with Hopewell Valley (3-4).

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They are the feature matchups on today’s schedule as Week 9 of the WJFL season features three games pitting Colonial Valley Conference squads against Burlington County teams.

The first of them has Rob Radice’s 4-3 Lawrence Cardinals trying to secure its first trip to the playoffs in three seasons when it hosts 4-3 Willingboro at noon.

Princeton (1-7) travels to Pemberton (0-7) for a 1 p.m kickoff that might be the last game of the season for Joe Gargione’s Little Tigers, who reportedly are thinking of passing up an NJSIAA consolation game.

A late addition to today’s schedule has Allentown (7-1) playing Hightstown (2-6) in a 7 p.m. kickoff at Robbinsville’s turf field. That game was to be played last night, but was cancelled and moved to a neutral site because Allentown’s field was not playable.

At stake for Steinert and Nottingham is the opportunity to possibly secure a first round home playoff game next weekend. Steinert is tied for the No. 4 seed in C.J. IV with 104 power points, while Nottingham also has 104 power points but is currently No. 3 seed in C.J. III.

Steinert football coach Dan Caruso feels that old cliche is even more appropriate this year.

Caruso, like all the county coaches, knew his players would be rusty after being unable to practice all of last week becdause school was closed due to Hurricane Sandy.

“We came back on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and I knew we were going to be sore, almost like it was the first day of hitting all over again,” said last year’s CVC Coach of the Year.

RV has already lost to CVC schools Notre Dame and West Windsor South, but beat Trenton on a late touchdown. Steinert had to go two overtimes to beat Trenton last month.

Caruso knows RV’s trademark is playing a physical brand of football. “We’ve been playing physical football all year so maybe the two weeks off helped us a little bit. Maybe it didn’t,” CDaruso speculates.

“The field’s going to be muddy. We’re going to do our best to clean it up but it’s not going to be ideal conditions,” said Steinert’s coach. “I think we can dominate the line of scrimmage and need to against these guys.”

Steinert’s key two-way linemen are Enock Asante and Mike Remboski, while tackle/LB Pat Harchik, running back/DBs Ed Ashley and Jeff Mattonelli and receiver/DB Vanel Dossous need to be at their best to help secure what would be only Steinert’s second home playoff game ever.

The 21 days without a game took a bigger toll on the Northstars, whose last memory of being on the gridiron was a 24-21 loss to Allentown that knocked them from the unbeaten ranks. Adams feels the long layoff helped his squad correct the problems he feels cost it in the Allentown showdown.

“We identified the problems and I think we fixed them these three weeks with the break,” said Adams, who felt a key to the loss wa his team being tired. “They gassed us. We were tired,” he said.

“We pushed conditioning hard in the bye week. They got together on their own and did things I think will help us, especially our receivers and defensive backs.”

Before the loss the ‘Stars first defense had not allowed a point. They should be pressured by HoVal QB Austin Fellows, who has passed for 888 yards and five TDs, while running backs Alec Hasse (8 TDs) and and Andrew Yuska lead a good run game as Dave Caldwell’s has had success on the ground out of a four-receiver spread offense.

“They’re going to do what they do and we’re going to do what we do,” said Adams. “What we don’t want to do is let them stick around. We want to get turnovers, play good defense, make things happen and be opportunistic like we have been all season. If we do that, we’ll be ok. If not it’s may be a long game.”